major carrier to mandate employee vaccinations could it do the same for passengers and why now is the time to shop for a new credit card. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt hello, everyone great to be back from our coverage at the olympics, but returning, frankly, to a country that sadly looks a lot more like last winter when it comes to covid that s how much ground we ve lost in the fight against the pandemic as we re about to show you, in some parts of the country, hospitals themselves are on the critical list. available icu beds counted in single digits, or worse yet, patients turned away. as the danger of the delta variant becomes more apparent each day, more americans are getting vaccinated that number well above 166 million. finally edging above the 50% mark but the goalposts may be moving. the threshold for herd immunity now calculated to be well beyond 80%, according to a recent briefing by the infectious
you re live in the cnn newsroom. i m jim acosta in washington. we begin with two key milestones in the fight against covid that show how far we ve come and how far we re falling behind. the u.s. is once again topping 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day. haven t seen numbers that high since february. the delta variant and unvaccinated americans are fueling this explosion. the good news is that as of today exactly half the u.s. is now fully vaccinated. nearly 166 million people. many parts of south dakota are considered high transmission areas as delta spreads including sturgis which you can seen 0 the left side of the map where hundreds of thousands are gathering for the world famous sturgis motorcycle rally.
highly effective and going on to say forcing vaccinated americans to wear masks feeds that perception. it s a good point. with all of this going on and mask requirements and everything else going on, it might actually be hurting the cause of getting the unvaccinated vaccinated, right? yeah, 100%. look, i mean, president biden told unvaccinated americans that they re stupid, unpatriotic and endangering the rest of us. nobody has been insulted into agreement. if you tell people they re stupid, they re far less likely to change their minds than the other way around and two, it s not true to unvaccinated americans are a risk to the rest of us. it s factually incorrect. if you re vaccinated and being around somebody who is not vaccinated is putting you at almost no danger. c.d.c. numbers, about 1,000 americans who have been vaccinated died of covid out of 166 million americans who have
especially considering where we were last year, right? summer surge that followed memorial day with a lot of folks traveling. a lot of folks got sick. this year though fortunately the pace of vaccinations expected to prevent a repeat. more than 133 million people fully vaccinated. another 166 million plus have had at least one dose. president biden said the so-called light at the end of the tunnel is not a fluke and we re closer than ever to post pandemic life. americans of every party, every race, creed have come together and rolled up their sleeves literally and done their part and look at what that means. not just saving lives, we re getting our lives back. millions of people are taking advantage. they re traveling in pretty large numbers that we haven t seen in quite some time. cnn s paulo sandoval is at
vaccinations expected to prevent a repeat. more than 133 million people in the united states now fully vaccinated and another 166 million plus have had at least one dose of the vaccine. the president says the light at the end of the tunnel is not a fluke. biden saying we are closer than ever to a post-pandemic life. americans of every party, every race, creed have come together and rolled up their sleeves literally and done their part. and look at what that means. we aren t just saving lives. we are getting our lives back. that means hitting the road. cnn s polo sandoval it at the new york airport. it looks like people are gathering and traveling in numbers we have not seen in literally more than a year. how busy is it where you are now? reporter: the big hope those leaving their bubbles after this time and stretching their travel